


Who Loves Most

by daphnerunning



Series: What is Wrought Between Us [7]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousin Incest, M/M, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27816811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: On both shores of the Belagaer, alliances are tested, secrets revealed, and brothers, unfortunately, are still brothers.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: What is Wrought Between Us [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019358
Comments: 17
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

“Father was right.”

Maitimo heard a ringing in his ears, He heard his own voice, oddly loud in the silence that followed their ship. The waves lapped against the hull, but there were no gulls following them, no gentle rustling of grasses or leaves, no laughing and talking of anyone in the distance. Just the waves, and the cold wind, and the sound of one of the Ambarussa vomiting over the side of the ship.

“That’s what you’re thinking?” He’d never heard Kanafinwë’s voice sound like that before. Nothing was supposed to make him sound like that. A week ago, Maitimo would have said that nothing _could_ make him sound like that, rough and low, a warrior instead of a wordsmith. Had it been the harsh words shouted in the battle? Was it the spray of the salt air? No, he thought, feeling a stone sink into his stomach. It was the words of the Oath, burning all of them with each syllable.

Maitimo looked out at the sea, then back at the ice. It wasn’t as if he could still see the host of the Noldorim waiting for them to return. The world was dark without the Trees, and they were too far away in any case. The rings around his neck felt cold against the skin of his chest. His heart felt cold inside it.

“He said that no creation lived in my soul,” he said, still feeling vaguely disconnected. “I think he was right. Destruction, though...”

The first young mariner had been lovely and brave. Or perhaps he just hadn’t believed that they would really fulfill that promise, when they’d said _stand aside, or we will do violence._

The first one, no. He hadn’t believed it. Maitimo didn’t know if he had been the first one to strike, or if it had been Turcafinwë on his left, or Morifinwë on his right. He only remembered the eyes of that young shipwright, wide in surprise, as Maitimo’s blade had cleaved him, split him from neck to navel.

“They should have just given us the ships. Why didn’t they just give us the ships?” Kanafinwë had been asking it for days, would keep asking until someone told him to be silent.“Could they not see that we were in earnest? Perhaps if I had gone in first, spoke to them of our purpose. Or you, Russo, you’ve always been able to forge understanding.”

“Have I?” Maitimo asked dully. He didn’t feel capable of forging understanding. He only felt capable of turning things to ash.

Footsteps sounded, and then a warm, broad hand was on his shoulder. “Take heart, Nelyo,” his father said, and even as shaken as he was, the fire burning in Fëanor’s eyes roused something in his breast. “The nightmare is nearly over. Just on the other side of the Belegaer, lies the Shadow, and our destiny, that no one will be able to wrest from us.”

Maitimo nodded. “Aye, Father.”

“The world that my father should have ruled,” Fëanor said, and though his voice was quiet, there was no less passion in it. “Our right. Our inheritance. Ours to explore and discover, from now until the end of days, and not under the thumb of those pompous fops. Imagine what sights await us, Nelyo. Imagine the songs you’ll write there, Káno.”

He wrapped an arm around each of them, squeezing them with the strength of the most powerful smith Arda had ever known, and for a moment, Maitimo saw the father he’d known before the jealousy had taken hold.

Perhaps this was what they needed, after all. Perhaps the Valar really were stifling them, ordering and ordaining everything _just so_. What use was there for a warrior-lord in the peaceful realms, after all? Maitimo had never felt skill or affinity for the peaceful arts practiced by most of his kin. Beneath the horror at Alqualondë, there had been a fierce rush of battle-lust in him, as if his spirit had always known he would come to this someday.

And maybe, whispered a voice low in his mind, as if afraid he’d be overheard even in his silence, in a place of discoveries and the bucking of tradition, he could find a place to be free, with Findekáno. Arda was large, after all, and untamed. Once the Enemy was defeated and the Silmarils safely recovered, what should anyone care if he had given his heart to his cousin? Better to lay with kin than slay them, certainly. Maybe they could forge their own fair country, where the Moriquendi would find them tall and kingly, and accept them in their rightful place.

The thought firmed his spine. He mustered a smile for his father, and it was not all feigned. Once their great host landed, their mission would be achieved, and the world would be theirs for the taking. If the world was dark, it was a darkness of Morgoth’s making, not his father’s. Maitimo would be a fool to miss the pain and loss that flickered on his father’s face from time to time, grief making him almost mad with his desire for revenge.

It was a desire Maitimo shared. The loss of High King Finwë could not be healed by revenge, but neither could that devastation be allowed to stand. For his father, who had never had a mother, the loss was unforgivable.

Maitimo clasped a hand over his father’s, squeezing, and nodded. “Your sons are with you,” he said. Kanafinwë’s voice wasn’t the only one that had changed during their flight. His own was different, but he had never considered it sweet in the realm of Aman, and the change did not feel like a loss.

~

If all of his attention had not been on his reunion, mayhap he would have noticed the change in his father. But the longer they were apart through the voyage, the more the longing grew, and Maitimo took to standing on the stern of the magnificent swan ship, as if his sharp eyes could split the long darkness and spy Fingolfin’s host even now.

If all of his attention had not been on that reunion, mayhap he would have noticed the way his father’s eyes no longer focused on any of them, nor the greater part of the host, but spent every moment at the prow of the ship, staring fiercely into the wind as if he could will himself over the Belegaer faster than the swan ship could carry them.

If he had been thinking of anything but Findekáno, left behind on the shores of the Helcaraxë, he would perhaps not have been surprised at his father’s laughter.

If he had seen what was changing instead of envisioning a rapidly-disappearing future, he might not have bothered speaking. Speaking against his father had never done him any good. Even so, he was unable to stop himself from uttering Findekáno’s name, the eagerness of a desired reunion making him a fool.

His father’s laughter echoed in his mind, making him dumb, numb, feeling as if it were his own body his father and brothers were burning.

As the red glow died, his father strode past him, a look of absolute scorn on his handsome face. As he passed, Maitimo thought he heard the muttered word, “Coward,” before his father disappeared into the tent they’d set up for him.

It didn’t hurt. He still only felt numb.

A strong hand grabbed his arm, shoving him back into a huge rock on the dunes. Morifinwë’s lovely face was a dark mask of disgust, and his voice was a snarl. “You think you’re the only one who left someone behind? Our cousin-- _half_ -cousin, at that--and you turn solicitous of those who would curse Father’s name?”

Maitimo knocked his hand aside. Hearing it from his father was one thing. Hearing it from a younger brother could not be endured. “Is it Findekáno’s fault that your wife chose the blessed shores over your ship?” he countered, and saw Morifinwë flinch, and was glad of it. “He would have followed us, _did_ follow us, for he is a lover of liberty, and hates only the Enemy. Did he not hurry the host of Ñolofinwë to our aid? Did he not defend us and avenge us against the Teleri? Casting aside such friends as these cannot be the path of wisdom!”

Morifinwë snarled, and would have closed with him, but Curufinwë grabbed his arm, his own face shadowed. “Let him be,” he said, casting down his eyes. “He cannot imagine what we have lost, you and I.”

Maitimo felt dark fire blaze in him fiercer than those that had kindled the swan ships, and would have drawn his sword, had another voice not come from the tents.

“Atya?”

The youthful voice was sleepy, and Curufinwë turned aside, putting an arm around Telperinquar’s shoulders. “Aye, I’m here. Go back to the tent.”

The youth’s face was shadowed, and he turned away. “The Ambarussa are weeping. It’s noisy.”

“I’ll come tell them to stop.” Curufinwë left with him, shooting a warning look over his shoulder.

Whether Morifinwë heeded it or not, he turned on his own heel, scoffing as he made for another tent.

“You are not a coward, Russandol. Nor are you solicitous.”

Kanafinwë’s voice was quiet. It had regained much of its previous melodiousness, during their long sail along the coast of the Helcaraxë, though it was still lower than Maitimo was used to. He brushed a strand of dark hair back from his face, his sharp eyes searching. “How could you be so foolish, to speak against him, to refuse him?”

“Because I am a fool,” Maitimo snapped. “And if I am coward, so much more are the lot of you for not standing against him. Those that wished to stay behind, aye, we can build our new world without them, but for this abandonment, surely treachery in return will be our only reward!”

Kanafinwë was shaking his head, but Maitimo grabbed him by the front of his tunic, his eyes blazing. “He will cut away even those who swore to follow him, so where will it stop?” he demanded. “Will he cut away those who followed us even here, should they refuse a battle with no hope of winning? Will he cut away even his sons, in the end?”

That sent a surge of anger through Kanafinwë, and he grabbed at Maitimo in turn, yanking at the neck of his shirt to keep hold of him. “Never! He _wouldn’t_. Next to the Silmarils, we are his most precious--“

“Even you number us beneath those gems!” Maitimo exclaimed, giving his brother a rough shake. “You, who love him the most!”

“Better than you, who love him the least! Who numbers him beneath our cousin in your affection!”

“Speak no further,” Maitimo warned.

But Kanafinwë’s blood was up, and his eyes were not entirely sane, as if the burning of the ships still reflected in his eyes long after the embers were cooling. “Father,” he mimicked with a singer’s deadly accuracy, “oath and quest that bind us all aside, let us think of going back for Findekáno _the_ _Valiant_ , let us tarry and waste and forego our momentum, only give me my faithful Findekáno, what matter my brothers’ wives as long as I have my pet--“

Maitimo didn’t know who had struck the first blow at Alqualondë, but he struck first now, slamming his fist into Kanafinwë’s stomach, unprotected now, though it had so recently been clad in armor. Kanafinwë’s return blow was just as vicious, driving into the side of his head, and then they were tumbling down the hill, lashing and striking and grabbing at each other, determined to grind each other down into the dirt of the land they’d sacrificed so much to reach. Kanafinwë had never hit him so hard before in all their youthful struggles, and Maitimo found himself incapable of holding back, letting fly vicious blows, watching blood flow from Kanafinwë’s lips, gouged against his teeth.

Then Kanafinwë grabbed his shirt and yanked, trying to throw him, and the chain around his neck broke under the force. His brother stared at it, the steel chain he’d shattered, now wrapped around his bloody knuckles, and the silver and gold rings hanging there.

All the fight drained out of Maitimo, replaced with something colder. He heard an odd, cracking, wheezing sound, and realized he was laughing. He laughed helplessly, tears in his eyes, laying back against a large boulder, worn smooth by the pounding of countless waves over centuries.

“Aye,” he choked out, closing his eyes against his brother’s wide stare, the dark mirth still coursing through him, unstoppable. “You spoke true in your jest. I care not for Kurvo and Moryo’s faithless wives, and prize them far below my brave cousin. Today, I number you all beneath Findekáno in my love.”

He snatched the chain and rings back, stuffing them into a pocket of his coat. They weren’t safe there. It didn’t matter. His heart was back in Aman, on the frozen shores of the Helcaraxë. Had they seen the fires? Did Findekáno know yet that he was betrayed? Not just Findekáno, but fair Ingoldo, laughing Elenwë, unshakeable Turukáno, wise Ñolofinwë his uncle, who Maitimo wished had foreseen this and stopped them from sailing.

“If you had a ship,” Kanafinwë said, voice deadly quiet, “would you return now?”

Darkness closed in his mind’s eye, swallowing Elenwë, Ingoldo, and the rest. “No,” Maitimo said softly as the darkness took Findekáno’s face from him, and wiped blood from his mouth with the back of one hand, turning towards the slopes up to his father’s camp at Drengist. “The time has passed for other choices. Now is the time for regret.”


	2. Chapter 2

“He isn’t coming back for you.”

Findekáno didn’t answer. He unstrung his harp, curling each string into a tight coil, wrapping them with twine in his pack. The Helcaraxë would be too cold for music. The strings would grow brittle, and snap.

“Are you listening to me, Finno? He’s left you. They’ve left all of us.”

Maybe he would snap, too, grow brittle in the cold and shatter. Methodically, he turned to his bow, unstringing it and sealing that up as well, hanging the stave upon his back. There would be little wild game to hunt, on the ice.

“They burned the ships. Don’t you know what that means?”

Findekáno finally looked up, meeting his brother’s eyes. “Aye,” he said simply, and tucked his breeches into his boots, lacing them tightly against the snow. “It will be a long walk.”

Turukáno fought a war upon his face, looking back in anguish at the two fair heads behind him; Elenwë, one of the few steadfast ladies of the court who had followed them here, and little Itarillë, tugging on her mother’s skirts. Arakáno knelt, a cheering smile on his face, and began to show her a sing-song game that numbered the sea-creatures of great Ulmo.

“Go back,” Findekáno advised, and clasped his younger brother’s shoulder. “I do not ask you to come with me.”

He saw it, as Turukáno made his decision. He cursed under his breath, and pulled free a long strip of cloth from his waist, wrapping it about his neck against the drafts. “And go back to the Valar, my determination broken, to beg for pity and scraps? Fëanor is a traitor and fey, but he was right about our duty. We cannot abandon the world to Morgoth, nor make comely slaves of ourselves for the sake of safety and comfort.”

He offered his hand, and Findekáno took it, squeezing as warmth returned to his chest. “Only promise me this. That you come for your own destiny and future, and not just chasing Nelyo’s back, as you were wont to do as a youth.”

Findekáno released his brother’s hand, giving him a helpless shrug. Then he bound up his hair, ribbons and all. “I will come. My reasons are my own. That will have to be enough, Turo.”

Turukáno looked exasperated. “You’ll get yourself killed one day, always going to his rescue.”

Findekáno gave him what he could manage of a smile. “I don’t think so. But if that is to be my doom, how could I do otherwise?”

“You’re a fool,” his brother informed him, and sighed. “Let’s tell Father we’re going. Those retainers of our houses should have the choice to come, or stay behind.”

“Agreed. I would go alone, though, if no one wished to accompany me.”

“Alone, across the Helcaraxë?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“To see Nelyo. Who left you here.”

Findekáno turned his eyes to the East, and the darkness of the sea, and beyond it, another land. “Yes.”

“You’re mad,” Turukáno said bluntly, and laughed. “When we find him, I’m going to tell him to just wed you already, or duel me for my brother’s honor.”

The words shot through Findekáno like a bolt of lightning, leaving him stunned. But Turukáno was chuckling as if he had spoken some great jest, turning away to speak in low tones to his wife.

Still shaken, he turned and sought out his father, under the spangled blue banners at the coast. His father looked like a true king, he thought, seeing him tall and stately, with grim determination in his eyes. “Father,” he said, and bowed his head, though he wasn’t certain why. His father had never cared for such things before.

Ñolofinwë gave him a measured look, and then one that softened, as if in grief. “Findekáno. You may still go back. Manwë has always looked kindly upon you.”

Findekáno blinked. That was so unlike what he had expected to hear from his father that for a moment he felt dizzy, as if he were in the wrong place. “I--no, Father. I came to tell you that Turo and I, we’re going across the ice, with whoever wishes to follow us.”

His father pressed his lips together, then nodded. “We will all go. All who choose it. I’ve just spoken with Arafinwë; he will not come, though his children are with us. His host returns to the mercy of the Valar, if they will give it him. Would you go with him?”

“I would not.”

“And Turakáno?”

“He will not.”

“And Arakáno?”

“No more he.”

Ñolofinwë closed his eyes for a moment, as pain flared in his eyes. “I wish that myself and my brothers could have been as steadfast as my three sons,” he said, in bitterness and grief. “You three give me courage. Sleep now, if you can. Though there be no morning in this long darkness, we will set out across the Grinding Ice.”

Findekáno nodded, taking heart. If his father, wise and powerful, thought the crossing could be done, then it could be done. “Yes, Father.”

“Findekáno.”

“Yes, Father?”

“You know we do not go to their aid. There may never be a reconciliation now. My brother Fëanor has burned more than the swan ships of the Teleri.”

Findekáno smiled. His heart was settled. “There is always hope for reconciliation, Father. They have not gone so far that we cannot reach them.”

“We will see if you feel so warmly after we cross the Helcaraxë.”

“I unstrung my harp and my bow. Nothing else of me may be hurt by the cold.”

“Well enough. But any man may be wounded by fire, and that is what my brother and his sons have become.”

“And yet,” Findekáno said quietly, “I believe there is still hope.”

His father gave him a long, measured look, and sighed. “I do not believe it myself. But I will believe it for you. If anyone can bring the sundered Noldor back together, Finno, it is you.”

“I, Father?”

“Aye.” His father rested a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. “You, who sees the darkness in this world, and chooses the light, every time. You are unflinching, but still kind. I offer you my wish that you might have a son one day, that brings you as much joy and pride as you do to me.”

Humbled, shamed, Findekáno drew back, averting his eyes. Like this, could he lie to his father? Could he omit? No, he realized. He could not, and further, would not. “I shall not,” he said, and squared his shoulders. “For I plighted my troth long ago, in secret, in defiance of our customs.”

Ñolofinwë drew in a sharp breath. Findekáno stayed still, reminding himself that he was not some foolish child, he was a Captain of his mighty father’s host, a prince and a lord.

“Who?” his father asked.

Findekáno looked at him for a moment, helpless. “Who else, but him?” he asked, and saw his father understand, though the thought was clearly not a pleasant one.

“That is...not what I would have wished.” An understatement, clearly, and one that cut him. If that simple phrase of disappointment hurt him so, he hated to think of what Maitimo would have endured, at the thought of telling his own father. That thought had been why it was kept secret, after all.

“Grandfather knew.” His father’s head shot up, and Findekáno nodded, continuing, “He said if we could bring you and Uncle Fëanor back together in fellowship, he would bless us, to you and everyone.”

Ñolofinwë’s jaw tightened. He looked away, and Findekáno could read nothing on his face. “Go ready your followers,” he said, the words clipped and tight. “We cross the Ice in less than a day. Doubtless...there will be time to speak of this matter again. I do not think the crossing will be a swift one.”

Findekáno nodded, and turned to leave, but paused with his hand on the door of the tent. “But...we will cross it, Father,” he said. “I have no doubt.”

“I have nothing but doubt,” his father answered quietly, and turned away from him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy. It's about that time. 
> 
> Note: I am not using Shibboleth of Fëanor canon for Amrod's death here because frankly it just would have derailed the story I wanted to write here. So as in the published Silmarillion, he dies at Sirion in this fic. I will continue to pick and choose my way through canons.


End file.
